Boat stretch goal pricing?

Yeah I was kind of wondering what the anchor would be used for, in-game, other than a decoration? Like mentioned the ability to anchor well away from anyone? In that case I'll buy like 100 of 'em to get the goal moving along.

I really would love to see ships (from a rowboat all the way up to a Galleon or Man of War). One thing I loved about the older Ultima games was capturing old pirate ships and then sailing the world shooting dragons and other pirate ships

I do wish the stretch goals were more cumulative (if a million dollars is hit, we'll make horses rideable; if two million dollars is hit we'll make pack animals; etc, etc) instead of split into individual goals.

 

My guess was that having an anchor would bring your ship to a stop quicker than a ship with no anchor.

 

I'd expect to see most or all of these for Episode 2. If we don't have boats, mounts, movable structures, and elves by Ep. 2 anyway, some peoples gon' be grumpy.

 

Well, having a boat in real life, I can tell you that you don't want to use an anchor to stop yourself quickly, or you're just asking for trouble, stuff flying overboard, etc. (unless maybe you're already close to being stopped)
I was once on a boat where an anchor fell over on accident, and no one noticed it until....... "HOLY MOTHER WHY DID OUR BOAT JUST GO ALMOST VERTICAL???"
Yeah, not a fun experience and probably took 5 years off the end of our lives.

Anchors are only useful for holding you in place. Use wind or oars (or turn the boat around) to slow you down/stop.

 

Or losing the anchor / damaging the hull.

 

http://www.history.navy.mil/ussconstitution/history.html
I remember going to see the U.S.S. Constitution "Old Ironsides" and the guide told a story of one of it's first battles. They were severely outnumbered but out of range and the wind died, completely. No ship could move, they all just stood there watching each other, with the 5 British warships waiting to crush the Constitution as soon as the wind picked up. Well instead of waiting the Captain of the Constitution ordered his men to place the Anchor in a row boat, go as far as they could and drop it. Then reel it back in pulling the ship to it. They eventually crawled away from the danger. By the way, the U.S.S. Constitution NEVER lost an engagement.
So who know what we can do with those anchors.

 

My bet is that an anchor will be necessary to stop in a hex that isn't a port and in ports will allow you to stop without having to dock.

So they might wind up on the very much needed list.

YMMV

PS. The use of an anchor to move the ship as described above is called kedging or warping and has been used many times in battle.

 

The movement on the stretch goals is quite depressing.

 

This discussion surfaces regularly in Star Citizen, which for a long time announced a stretch goal to accompany each $1 million raised. They kept stating that the goal was symbolic, a reward to the backers, but there were always people who thought that the entire $1 million would be spent on the stretch goal. Finally they set the $49 million stretch goal as an alien plant that bloomed once every 100 years. Finally, surely, people would realise that the $1 million wasn't to be spent on the stretch goal, and that it was purely symbolic. Nope. People were outraged that Cloud Imperium Games was going to spend $1 million dollars on an alien space plant that only bloomed once every 100 years.

I suspect that most of the stretch goal money in SotA will not be spent on the stretch goals, and I'm fine with that.

 

I'm pretty sure they set the dollar amounts at what they expect to have to spend to create the functionality they describe for these stretch goals. My experience of software development makes me think the goals aren't unreasonable.

 

This may have already been pointed out to you, but you can turn your Benefactor pledge into a Founder pledge by buying an existing Founder pledge from someone else, and then email portalarium customer service and have them merged. This will up your Duke pledge with the pledge-amount of the Founder-pledge that you bought, and turn it into a Founder pledge alltogether. INcluding all the cool extra's that belong to a Duke-level pledge. even a low level 45 dollar FOunder pledge will do it.

Check out the Marketplace forum, there's constant buying and selling going on there, and its legit. Check out Lord Andernuts sticky post at the top. Would be a waste sitting on a Duke pledge and not spend maybe 60-100 dollars extra and get a huge amount of extra's.

 

Id like to see any documentation that it would cost 500k to impliment boats in any game. It will never make it in this game but it would be one of the cooler features. Seems counter productive cause they are just keeping customers away rather than gainig them from those that would donate if ships were guaranteed. Theyd get 500k extra income from ppl donating just cuz boats would be ingame

 

Here's my WAG from a different thread about this topic. My wild ass guess is based off a couple years of software development experience from some time ago but the basic premises that it takes as much time to test software as it does to write the initial code and the cost of employee overhead is equal to the cost of employee salary seem fairly solid even today. The original thread I posted this in is here.

My Quote from Earlier Thread--

If this goal was $25 000 and then because Portalarium understated the actual development costs for this feature, they gimped either this feature, or other core features, would you then complain about that?

If it seems 'tacky' please provide your reasons, if your reasons are based on feelings without experience I ask that you take some time to explore development costs, overhead costs & some of the challenges faced in software development.

Using KS as examples of stretch goals isn't truly valid as with a little research it's easy to find projects where unrealistic goals cause the projects to fail, greatly exceed their delivery dates or fail to provide all the features promised.

I have a few years experience from about 15 years ago, none of the stretch goals being offered seem out of line with what I'd expect in terms of true cost to develop, test and implement the features described.

The costs of development loosely are developer time, testing time and overhead. My experience leads me to understand that some rough estimates are that 'time to test development' = 'time to develop' & overhead = 'employee salary'. Remember that 'time testing' always adds to 'time developing' and is included in the 'time testing' factor.

Portalarium isn't hiring inexperienced people (and nor should they as I'm expecting a polished professional game and not some first time out indy game) and with the small team they have initial testing is being done by the devs themselves as best I can tell, let's use the industry average for game developers as the base dollar amount in the cost calculations. From this page and given a team of 1 Business/Legal, 5 Producers (Associate thru Executive), 2 Audio Designers (it always seems there's fewer of those guys) and 8 each of Programmers, Developers & Artists you get an average weekly salary of $1694 let's call it $1750 (I'm hoping Portalarium isn't treating their team as 'average'). Note that my math assumes a 50 week work year.

When you add overhead and test time to development time you get $7000/team member/week of development.

Now lets build a team to work on a stretch goal. 1 Producer, & 2 each of Programmers, Developers & Artists, let's treat Business/Legal and Audio as incidental. That gives a total of $49,000 per week again lets round up a little to make it easy and cover any other incidentals I've missed and say $50,000/week for a team to work on stretch goals.

Given the current stretch goals it breaks down like this:

Boats........................$500,000 = 10 weeks development

Elves as a player race....$300,000 = 6 weeks development

Flexible placement.......$250,000 = 5 weeks development

Mounts......................$250,000 = 5 weeks development

Pack Animals...............$100,000 = 2 weeks development

Now these are numbers based off my WAGs (Wild A** Guess) but I'll gladly put them up against any of the other SWAGs (Silly Wild A** Guess) I've seen in this thread as to which is closer to reality.

I don't see the goals as being greedy, and I do see those who post "I want this feature but think that goal is too high" as possibly wanting something for nothing (or at least far less).

I would remind everyone these pledges are voluntary and should they succeed in getting features into the game for episode one that otherwise wouldn't have made it, then those who've pledged have benefited us all.

I'm more than welcome to discussing this with people who'll offer more than feeling and wild assumptions about the costs associated with these goals. Anyone else should really be asking 'Does posting feelings and wild assumptions really help the discussion?' Go ahead and post your feelings and wild assumptions just understand that it doesn't help you get taken seriously.

YMMV

End Quote.

I haven't sat in on any of the budget or scheduling meetings at Portalarium but I have been at those meetings for other software and I'm willing to bet I'm in the the ballpark for what they figure the development time is for the functions being offered by the stretch goals, given the dollar amounts for the goals listed.

On one thread on the topic of stretch goals, someone posted that $250k was 5 to 10 years of developer salary with no indication of where the overhead came from. Using that kind of math to prove the point that the stretch goals listed are 'overpriced' or 'greedy' is just silly. If you took the $250k, cut it in half to provide overhead and then paid someone for 10 years with it you'd be paying $12,500 a year. Is there anyone who wants to play the game designed and programed by the guy willing to work for $12,500 a year? Or even $25,000 a year using the 5 years?

I don't expect any official posts to come to verify my guesses or anyones guesses, as a privately held company Portalarium doesn't have to post such info and really shouldn't publish such info. I share what knowledge I have from my limited experience to help people see that the stretch goals aren't wildly out of line in terms of dollar amounts needed and the time to develop the functions promised by the stretch goal.

Having stretch goal prices that don't adequately cover the expected time and cost for those features means that other features would have to suffer to deliver the promises made by the stretch goals and that is something we can all agree wouldn't be good for the game.

Just my thoughts, YMMV

 

You have to take it in consideration of the market. It doesnt happen in a vacuum, it wasnt my decision to have kickstarter and yet it is up to me and us to fund the game and pay for features that a free in other games. It seems silly to expect what they do when other games offer it for free or a initial game purchase plus a monthly fee. I could buy a lifetime sub for half the town in any other game and get it for free when i am supposed to pay for relatively thpical features for other games. Imo they are being very hesitant to go all in and it seems to me like they are covering their arses incase of game failure.

Get a loan and pay for it yourself as a company that can do so. I couldnt get a loan to begin with so it seems they r being illogical and they would end up getting more donations in other areas if they were to impliment it on their own

Ie all the boat related content would easily add up to 500k with a few other things purchased from what would be extra gained customers instead why in the world would anyone buy add on one time purchases like the boat related content when they see a stretch goal like 5% funded. Makes no sense to me. They are basically havig people pay them to make a game in which optimally would have its revenue post launch far exceed the cost of development people are selligng them content at cut rate prices when internally it would likely cost way more to develop

If they are doing a cya by hedging their bets on possible failure why should we keep the faith and fund stretch goals when it looks like they dont even have faith in their product

 

Lots of sweeping statements with no facts, poor spelling and grammar, enlarging the scope of your complaint when your earlier complaints are dealt with -- it really seems like your mind is made up and you aren't really here to discuss anything substantive.

I've posted the rational reasons why the stretch goals for episode one are reasonable and fair, I don't see the need to further deal with the unending list of problems and sweeping statements of "how it is in other games" without any support for said statements.

No one is being forced to support the game or the stretch goals so feel free to do as you please, but understand that no one is being forced to take anyone else seriously either.

YMMV

 

What facts were you expecting? The fact is its offered in other games for free and not this one. Id pay to not have grammar police and thier holier than thou attitude interjecting their opinion as fact on an OPINION based DISCUSSION board

You dont know how they operate so stop claiming that is somehow justified because you say so based off of outdated evidence. I didnt jump down your back so get off of me

Im entitled to feel how i do i paid money so my opinion matters just as much as yours

Dont expect a lazer narrow focus of conversation when the topic subject is broad and generalized.

I dont have to pay and can play other games? Thanks for the eye opening info its so helpful. Your rough estimates are stretched to the max andhardly qualify as fact based evidence. More like speculation. Welcome to a forum
The business is hardly the same as it was two years ago so basing your info on an outdated platform and limited knowledge of the company and its practices offers nothing more than pseudo facts.

I dont need nor care about your speculated cost analysis as all one needs to know is the value vs reward is very low compared to other games and what is so wrong with comparing two games in the same genre

Just becase statements are sweeping doesnt mean they are invalid im not writing a thesis nor does it take a rocket scientist to realize that more features mean more customers and that nobody is going to buy a pirate outfit when there are no boats.


If this were a feasible model it would have been done more frequently and sucessfuly cause the nature of the industry is wheb something is a sucess it gets copied and pledge reward for functions arent too popular. Does it make sense to make a lesser game just because your players dont meet stretch goals. What happened to makig the best game possible. Is it now " we want to make the best game that the players will fund"

Id rather see what the game is like and then fund something rather than pay a huge sum based on trust
More features equals more revenue. With such a obviously high barrier to entry its a no brainer that people would be more likely to play witout having to fund features they want

 

Time for Captain Jack to find a Spanish fleet from the new world and rob it blind...

 

Probably gonna be hard to do without boats and mounts. hope you are a good swimmer and better runner

 

I think it's clear that Portalarium is committed to creating an entire experience and not just bolting on a feature. It's not just boats that we'll likely get, but an entire boating experience.
How many different boats do you want?
What do you want to do with your boat?

Surely the boaters are expecting more than just sailing around an empty ocean. They'll want:
Deep sea fishing
Monsters
Sea battles
Ports
Multiple players aboard
Islands

Now do boats sound like a more daunting task?

 

Not really its a fairly standard feature set in any decent mmo. My point is once people start getting something for free its hard to make them pay for it. Last i checked it was a stretch goal with a maybe implimentation down the road and anyone familiar with mmos knows maybe means not a snowballs chance in hell